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Transitional Justice In Korea: Legally Coping With Past Wrongs After Democratization, Kuk Cho
Transitional Justice In Korea: Legally Coping With Past Wrongs After Democratization, Kuk Cho
Washington International Law Journal
For more than a decade, Korean society has taken various legal steps to rectify past wrongs perpetrated by the old authoritarian-military regime. In 1995, the “Special Act Concerning the May 18 Democratization Movement” was passed in the National Assembly. Under this new legal circumstance, the two former presidents were imprisoned on charges of leading the 1979 military coup and brutally oppressing the May 18 Uprising of 1980. However, because such a transition from the authoritarian-military rule was established through a political compromise, Korean society had to experience a limited transitional justice. As another step to rectify past wrongs, the “Act …
China's Practice Of Procuring Organs From Executed Prisoners: Human Rights Groups Must Narrowly Tailor Their Criticism And Endorse The Chinese Constitution To End Abuses, Joan E. Hemphill
Washington International Law Journal
For the past two decades, human rights groups, medical organizations, and the international media have excoriated China for procuring transplant organs from executed prisoners. This practice was first authorized under China’s 1984 “Temporary Rules Concerning the Utilization of Corpses or Organs from the Corpses of Executed Criminals” and it is widely used by the Chinese government. Reports from Chinese doctors and media sources reveal significant deficiencies both in the text and application of China’s current organ-procurement laws. The lack of clear legal parameters and the absence of enforcement measures have opened the door to problems of interpretation and misapplication, resulting …
The International Law Exception To The Act Of State Doctrine: Redressing Human Rights Abuses In Papua New Guinea, Joshua Gregory Holt
The International Law Exception To The Act Of State Doctrine: Redressing Human Rights Abuses In Papua New Guinea, Joshua Gregory Holt
Washington International Law Journal
In Sarei v. Rio Tinto, the Ninth Circuit reversed the dismissal of Papua New Guinea residents’ alleged human rights violations and environmental tort claims under customary international law and the Alien Tort Claims Act. The Ninth Circuit decided that jus cogens norms precluded application of the Act of State Doctrine. The United States Supreme Court in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino decided that U.S. courts could apply the Act of State Doctrine, absent an unambiguous and controlling international rule of law, to avoid judging foreign sovereigns’ acts within their own territories. This comment argues that crystallized legal norms …